The Greenpoint-based blogger Morgan Pehme is reporting that Brooklyn residents are not happy that media mogul Rupert Murdoch is continuing to scoop up their local newspapers.

Pehme commented on news published by The New York ObserverMarch 10 that the 31-year-old independent newspaper, The Brooklyn Paper, has been purchased by Murdoch's News Corporation. The corporation already owns the Brooklyn Courier-Life chain of newspapers, the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal.

"Brooklynites I called for quick comment are deeply disturbed at the total media consolidation of New York City's biggest borough — especially since all the papers will now be under the control of the ultra-conservative FOX News baron," Pehme wrote on his blog, The Brooklyn Optimist. "'It's likely to put a stranglehold on independent reporting and on the ability for people to find out what's going on in their community and influence it,' said Carroll Gardens resident Glenn Kelly"

"And it's not just the residents of Brooklyn that are reeling from the sudden bombshell. There's likely to be a dramatic shake-up in both the Courier-Life and Brooklyn Paper newsrooms as News Corp. eliminates overlap between the two papers."

To learn more about the problems of media consolidation, check out the "Who Owns the Media" webpage by Free Press, a media watchdog and media education organization.

Comments

Anonymous

03/11/2009 - 2:23pm

This is not good news because the Courier-Life and Brooklyn Paper are big competitors and stylistically and journalistically very different publications. I have noticed that the Brooklyn Papers have been pencil thin recently and the editor Gersh Kuntzman hasn't been writing as much. Its an odd thing that in one of the most liberal-progressive cities in the country, our press is much more to the right of the general populace. This could also spell doom for one of the two papers and more conservative newsrooms.

The Brooklyn Papers in particular serve the Park Slope area. A conservative paper in Park Slope?!